


A Fight Is Not Extraordinary

by mielipieli



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alfred is a badass, Bruce and Dick fight, Cass is a pretty ballerina, Creative Insults, Duke is clueless, Gen, Jason and Dick fight, Tim and Damian fight, rating because Dick curses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-11-06 19:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11043087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mielipieli/pseuds/mielipieli
Summary: The bat family fights. A lot. Somehow everyone except for Duke seems to know what to do.





	1. A small fight is normal

Duke, Cass and Steph came back from their shopping trip some time in the afternoon to find Damian and Tim in the game room, which was only a door down from Bruce’s study.

„What are you guys up to?“, Steph asked as she let herself fall into one of the chairs. 

Damian raised an eyebrow: „I am beating Drake as you can see.“

„YOU ARE AN EGOTISTICAL, ANNOYING, IDIOTIC, SELF-SERVING, ARROGANT BASTARD!“, Dick’s voice yelled from somewhere outside of the room.

Bruce’s voice boomed through the room next: „IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY?!“ Then the voices continued in a more normal volume. 

Duke’s eyes widened: „What is going on?“

„They are having a fight over something invasive Bruce did. They’ve been yelling for about ten minutes. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I’m the one who won the last three races, demon brat“, Tim said calmly. 

There was a loud sound of something being smashed in the other room. No one but Duke even flinched. He decided someone had to check up on them and began running to the door. 

Cass put a hand on his chest. „Don’t. Won’t help. Let them fight it out.“

A loud and deep bang was heard from the other room. Cass made Duke sit down on one of the couches and sat next to him.

„So, how was your trip?“, Tim asked without looking away from the TV.

Steph grinned: „I finally found a good dress to wear on my birthday. We also got Duke and Cass some actual clothes. I swear those two have like five clothing items.“

„YOU ACT LIKE AN IRRESPONSIBLE CHILD!“

„WELL, YOU TREAT ME LIKE ONE!“

„Are we sure sure they’re okay?“, Duke asked and threw the wall to Bruce’s study a worried look.

„Yes, really. Don’t worry about it, Duke“, Tim said. „That’s great, Steph. What is the dress like?“

„It looks a bit like it’s a skirt and a top but it’s a dress. The upper part is white and the skirt has a purple and blue pattern that is kind of unidentifiable.“

„It is“, Cass said with a smile. 

„I AM NOT HAVING A DISCUSSION WITH YOU UNTIL YOU LEARN HOW TO ACT RATIONALLY“, Bruce yelled and a door was heard swinging open. Then everyone turned to the door as Bruce stormed past.

„I’M NOT THE ONE WHO CAN’T COMMUNICATE HIS FUCKING EMOTIONS AND THINKS IT’S A GOOD IDEA TO SPY ON HIS MOTHERFUCKING FAMILY!“

They watched a figure sprinting past the door and heard an „umpf“ sound and a crash somewhere outside. Then everything went eerily quiet. 

„Fuck“, Bruce said. „ALFRED?! DICK IS UNCONSCIOUS AND HE MIGHT HAVE A CONCUSSION!“

Duke looked horrified. The others just looked mildly concerned. 

„I’m okay, Bruce. I just blacked out for a second.“

„Should we maybe make sure they’re alright?“, Duke whispered.

„Nah, this is how they actually start talking. Also since they are now going to sit in the hallway we cannot leave this room for the next half hour“, Steph said. 

„How is this normal?“

„It’s not but this family is completely dysfunctional“, Tim replied. „Ha, take that Damian. I win again.“

Alfred’s calm voice was heard from the hallway: „Am I correct in my assumption that no one was actually hurt but you are both in need of an icepack?“

„Yes. Thanks, Alfie“, Dick said. 

„Master Dick, you owe the swear-jar five dollars.“

„I know.“

For a moment there was an absolute quiet. 

„Hey, Cass. Wanna play?“, Steph asked with a smirk.


	2. Even a medium fight is alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Damian have a showdown in the hallway with the vent. You know... the vent.

Duke was having a great time with Dick and Cass. The two were telling him about ballet. Apparently, Dick had done some ballet for about two years as a teenager until he had gotten too busy with the Teen Titans. Now he could use his knowledge to talk to Cass about ballet. They were both so incredibly sweet about it that Duke was incredibly invested in the conversation even though he didn’t have a goddamn clue what they were explaining to him. 

“WELL, I AM THE ONLY TRUE HEIR!”

“OH, SHUT UP WITH THAT NONSENSE! YOU STILL SOUND LIKE THE SAME BRAT YOU WERE WHEN YOU FIRST CAME HERE!”

Duke looked at the vent. This living room had one that - as he had learned one week earlier - amplified the sound in a specific spot in the hallway so it always sounded like a shout. Not that Damian and Tim weren’t being a bit louder than usually. 

When he looked back to the other two, Cass had a hand on Dick’s shoulder: “Won’t help.”

“I know, I know. I just can’t stand them fighting. I know they’ve gotten better about it but I still fear broken bones every time one of them raises their voice.”

Duke had been relatively calm about this before. Since Dick’s and Bruce’s fight a few weeks ago he had gotten glimpses of a few other fights and tried to ignore most of them. Now, though: “Wait… That’s happened?”

Dick shrugged: “Well, once. There were quite a few sprains and concussion, though.”

Duke swallowed. That was… good to know. 

“OH, ARE YOU GOING TO CALL FOR MOMMY?”

“AT LEAST I STILL HAVE ONE!”

Dick jumped up and was pulled back down by Cass almost immediately: “Stay.”

“But it’s one of the bad ones”, Dick pouted. 

“Won’t. Help.”

Duke really wanted to know what would because at this point there were insults being thrown around that he couldn’t have come up with in a million years. He was starting to wonder whether creative insults were one of those things Bruce taught at a later stage because he had heard some pretty colourful shakespearean ones from Jason on patrol. 

His favorite one so far had to be “I’ll beat thee, but I would infect my hands”, which was an actual quote from Timon of Athens. Duke knew. He had looked it up. Tim usually threw around the ones that were incredibly geeky or generally tech-related. One of the classics of course was “low wifi”. 

Now, however Duke was seeing whole new levels of insults. None of them contained swear words but Duke would have gone red as a tomato even thinking most of them. The more harmless ones included Damian yelling: “May the bird of paradise fly up your nose” and “May an elephant caress you with his toes.” Tim graced their ears with: “You couldn’t make a friend if you milked a bull.”

Duke could only guess Damian hadn’t fully understood that one because otherwise even Dick probably wouldn’t have been able to stop a nuclear winter. That turned out to be inevitable anyway.

“Unfortunately, I have a rare auditory disorder that keeps me from hearing people who have an IQ below their shoe size”, Tim said very clearly apparently standing in the precise spot the vent amplified most. 

Duke was mildly disappointed later on that he didn’t know what Damian had said before or what his face had been after. They just heard the most horrifying yell and all of them darted out of the room to stop a murder. Duke was scared they were going to be too late.

Fortunately - as it always is - Alfred saved the day. He was standing in the hallway with a hand on Damian’s shoulder and another on Tim’s. He didn’t look disturbed by the murderous Damian or Tim with a very satisfied grin. 

“Master Damian, if you could please refrain from injuring your brother, that would be very kind. And Master Timothy. If any quotients were to be questioned in this family, it should be the EQ, don’t you think?” Then Alfred calmly lifted his hands from their shoulders and straightened his impeccable bowtie. He walked out of the room without anyone saying a single word. 

“Father will hear about this”, Damian said like a terrible caricature of Draco Malfoy. 

That was the precise moment Duke lost it.


	3. Some fights just need to be stopped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duke was really just trying to learn something from Tim. Their lesson gets interrupted by Jason and Dick.

The third truly unique fight experience Duke had in his first few months in the manor (there were a lot still to come at much later dates) was quite different from the other two. 

It was 1 am Duke was sitting in the living room with Tim, who was explaining some hacking techniques to him (Tim had some back pains that he didn’t want to aggravate and Duke had decided to keep him company). Duke had been trying to get everyone to teach him something they were especially good at whenever they visited: Dick taught him one acrobatic move every time, Jason taught him something about different weapons and Tim showed him how to get around one security feature. The great thing about it was that when they just had ten minutes they would do something smaller and sometimes they would teach for several hours. 

Anyway, Duke was trying to remember all of the terms Tim was using to describe the code - he was really good at explaining but would sometimes drift off into a more advanced language so Duke just had to tell him to keep it simple - as Tim hacked the security cameras of the cave. Of course Tim did have the passwords but it was a good practice because nothing bad would happen if an alarm did go off. A picture of the computer area appeared on the screen. 

“Ok. Let’s start with what some repetition. Just change which camera is being accessed”, Tim said after he had copied and pasted the code into a different window. 

Duke stared at the screen for a second. They had done this last week. He just had to find the right command and change the variable… That should do it. 

The image on the screen changed to The Round Table. The Round Table was the planning area. It had a steel table with a holographic projector in the middle. This area was used for planning and announcing plans or coordinating patrol schedules. Sometimes also for building people pyramids that were upside down but that was a weirder story from Duke’s second week. 

“Good job”, Tim announced and Duke decided not to tell him that he had been hoping to remember the variable of the supply room. “This time change it to the garage.”

Duke thought for a moment. The problem with the batcave was that depending on who had last worked on the code - and it could have been any and all of them - the variables would either be ‘Batgarage’, ‘Garage’, ‘room125’, or a Shakespeare reference. Duke went for Batgarage. He was pretty sure he had seen Dick on some code in the batcave yesterday and honestly this guess was as good as he could do.

He was lucky. The screen showed the garage with two motorcycles driving in. 

“Dick and Jason are back early”, Tim said with a frown. 

Dick stepped off of his bike and threw his helmet in a corner. Even with him just being a tiny figure on the screen, he looked like shit: His uniform was cut in multiple places and he was limping slightly as he walked away from the cycle. Jason jumped off after him and threw his helmet into the same corner. Then his lips moved in something that was most likely yelling. Duke was pretty sure his leather jacket had been longer before. 

“Oh, fuck. We have to stop this”, Tim said eyes wide. 

Duke was confused: “What do you mean?”

Tim had already closed his laptop and was jumping up: “This fight!” He started sprinting towards the grandfather clock. 

Duke followed: “I thought we don’t interfere with fights?!” 

Tim frantically turned the clock hands: “We do if it’s those two!”

The clock swung open and they both slipped through it. They were immediately hit by unintelligible yelling. Tim slid down the pole at the side of the stairs and Duke followed, still confused. 

A loud bang reverberated throughout the cave and Tim started swearing. 

“You shot me! What the actual fuck!”, came Dick’s yell.

Duke’s eyes widened. 

“Oh, come on. They’re just blanks. You’re just a…”

Duke didn’t even know what half of the swear-words Jason used meant. He was pretty sure there were about ten different languages’ worst swear words and insults in the long string of words. The roar from the garage made it obvious that Dick did know what they meant. 

Tim accelerated and Duke really hadn’t expected him to be able to run so fast. Tim vanished through the door.

“Stop!”, Duke heard him yell. “Both of you! You look like shit and if you continue this, you’re going to need more than a few stitches!”

Duke slid to a stop as soon as he was able to see what was going on: Tim was standing between their much taller brothers. Jason’s guns were lying a few meters to the side. Instead Jason was holding a weird wavy knife Duke had never seen before. Dick wasn’t holding any weapons. His escrima sticks were on his back but the look on his face and his posture made Duke want to back away slowly. 

Jason took a deep breath with his eyes close and when he opened them again it seemed to Duke as if they were a bit more blue-ish. Probably just a trick of the light. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

Jason then turned around, walked past Duke and into the direction of the showers. Duke looked after him for a second before turning back to Dick and Tim. 

Tim sighed: “Come on, Dick. That cut looks pretty deep.”

Dick’s entire body seemed to lose all of its energy and he let Tim drape his arm over his shoulder. “I always fuck up with Jason. I don’t know what it is but he just makes me lose all of my control.”

Tim let out a dry chuckle: “I’m pretty sure that’s mutual.”

Duke decided this was the right moment to just flee from the scene.


End file.
